Good teaching vs. bad teaching part 1

My personal experience between a good teacher vs. a bad teacher (part 1)

I’ve encountered many teachers during my school years, some of them I liked, some of them I didn’t care for too much, but I had two teachers during my high school years who really made an impact on me. One  of them was very positive, whereas one of them managed to make my life in seventh grade a living hell.

This is my experience with my good teacher, Herr Dahm:

I had a passion for art and loved to draw. I remember my Mother always telling people:” I swear my daughter was born with a pencil in her hand.” So I had this bad habit of always picking up a pen or pencil during class and either doodling in my composition books, or literally creating a piece of artwork on a blank sheet of paper. During my elementary years at my old school, nobody ever seemed to care. I had always brought home decent grades and done my schoolwork regularly, so this habit was never addressed or had been considered an issue. But in high school things were different. Although I had quickly build a pretty good rapport with all my new teachers, as soon as I would pick up a pencil and start drawing, I would hear my name being called by the current teacher and then I would have to endure the same lecture I was getting almost on a daily basis at that time, of how I was not in art class and that I needed to pay more attention to what we were learning. Some teachers were harder on me than others and would punish me by giving me extra assignments to be turned in the next day, or would even send me to detention. But what none of them realized was, that in fact, keeping my hand busy helped me concentrate better and retain the lesson we were given easier. Just sitting there and listening to my teachers talk, was never very effective for me. I would find my mind wandering, loosing concentration and thinking about many other things except for what we were doing in class. It was very frustrating sometimes, because I would try so hard to pay attention to my teachers and focus on what they were saying, but to no avail. Soon, all I would hear was:” Blablabla…,” just a bunch of jibberish and nonsense, like watching the teacher in the Charlie Brown and Snoopy cartoons. But if I picked up a pencil and started drawing, I would find myself more focused on what was being said, and less distracted by other random thoughts. Sometimes my drawings would even be related to the topic we were discussing in class without me fully consciously knowing what I was drawing. And so it was, that my teacher Herr Dahm, who taught English and History, observed me one day, once again breaking the rules during his history class and just going at it with my pencil and paper. We had been learning all about the old German city “Trier” that day, with all it’s  beautiful historical monuments and palaces and ruins,  and how Trier was originally build.

Just off the topic, here are some fun history facts about Trier and what we were discussing during class, just to help you understand more about what happened next:                                                                      Trier in Rhineland-Palatinate, whose history dates to the Roman Empire, is often claimed to be the oldest city in Germany, with ruins of an old roman amphitheatre, dating back to approximately 100 AD and it’s tourist attraction, the “Porta Nigra”, ( latin for black gate ), which was build between 160 – 180 AD.          It wasn’t until 870 AD, that Trier became part of the East Frankish Empire, which would later be called Germany under the reign of Henry I.

So here I was, drawing the entire time as Herr Dahm was speaking, until I heard his voice call:” Anja!” It was a very harsh and reprimanding voice which demanded attention, so right away I dropped my pencil onto my paper and looked up. Herr Dahm was scarlet red in his face, one of his trademarks when he would get angry, and he ordered me to immediately come to the front of the class with my drawing. I felt humiliated and exposed, feeling 23 pairs of eyes staring at me as I took the “walk of shame” and handed over my artwork to my teacher. No sooner had I done so, then his expression changed from angry to curious, almost amused. My drawing depicted of Roman Legionnaires invading a city, (my version of the old Trier), with the Porta Nigra in the background and an amphitheatre. Herr Dahm turned to me, his face back to it’s normal state of color and his voice calm as can be:” Can you tell me what I was just talking about?” I recited everything mentioned in the above paragraph, how Trier came to be the oldest city in Germany, and  in which year the above mentioned structures were erected. Without another word, Herr Dahm handed me my art work back and asked me to sit back down. Nothing else was said that day.

The next day during English class, Herr Dahm walked up to my desk and handed me a plastic bag. “It’s a gift,” he said with a wink of an eye and a smirk on his face and walked back to his own desk to continue his lesson. I waited until the end of class to look inside the bag, much to the dismay of my very curious classmates.  I couldn’t help but smile when I retrieved it’s contents, a set of very good quality drawing pencils, charcoal pencils and a drawing pad.

Naturally, Herr Dahm, who remained my English-and History teacher for most of my high school years, would randomly select me from time to time and ask me to recite what we were discussing during class that day. Sometimes he would even ask me to come to the front of the class and write the answers on the blackboard, as he would give me a ‘five-minute-pop-quiz’, just to make sure that I was really still paying attention. But as I never let him down and ended up proving to be one of his top students in his class, even the random quizzes became fewer and fewer and eventually stopped altogether. But he never said a word again about my drawing during his classes. He must’ve understood, how much it actually helped me to be a better student. And he even encouraged it. Once in a while I would still find little gifts on my desk, which lasted all through my high school years while attending Hauptschule Gillenfeld, Germany. I would find erasers, or a new set of colored pencils, or a new drawing pad, all of good quality. One time I even received a book on how to draw landscapes. And up to this day I suspect that Herr Dahm had a talk with some of my other teachers after that particular incident, for most of them started turning an eye, whenever I would start drawing again during their lessons. 

I believe Herr Dahm to be the best teacher that I had. He understood my needs and accommodated me to be the best student that I could be. He bend the rules a little by giving me the freedom to do what I enjoyed doing, which ultimately helped me to be a better learner. And I saw him treat other students the same way too. He always tried to help his students by accommodating to their needs, by keeping an open mind, making learning a fun experience for students, but at the same time making sure to keep them on track. And that’s what a good teacher should be about.